Hairdressing or haircutting can be a tiring occupation. A hairdresser must often spend up to ten hours per day on his or her feet performing a variety of operations on a customer's hair such as, for example, cutting. The fatigue occasioned by such a schedule is physically debilitating and mentally fatiguing to such an extent that the quality of the service performed may suffer. Further, for some individuals with physical impairments standing is difficult, if not impossible.
A hairdresser must also have ready variety of hairdressing implements, such as scissors, razors, curlers, and the like and expendable items, such as hairspray, gels, water, and the like. A fixed table provides a surface to hold such implements or items but must be reached by walking from a position contiguous with the customer's chair to the table and back again. This only increases the amount of walking a hairdresser must do and, concomintantly increases the fatigue suffered by the hairdresser.
It in desirous, therefore, to provide a device whereby a hairdresser may sit while cutting a customer's hair but still have a complete and easily attainable range of action around the customer. An example of a prior art apparatus is U.S. Pat. No. 1,352,409 to Hoefner wherein a barber's chair is disclosed as having a traveling stool attached thereto. The arrangement in accordance with the '409 patent is, however, quite complex to manufacture and use. Further, it does not provide for ease of use by the hairdresser to sit upon or alight from the traveling stool, or swivel or elevate the traveling stool.
It is also desirous to provide a tray that is capable of holding hairdressing implements and is readily moved relative to a customer's chair to provide close and easy access to the implements while the hairdresser is cutting the customer's hair.